


The Operator

by literallyjohnwatson



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Horror, Slenderlock, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:28:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literallyjohnwatson/pseuds/literallyjohnwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Sherlock sees it, he isn't afraid. The last time he sees it, it destroys him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Operator

**Author's Note:**

> I got to re-watching Marble Hornets and reading some other Slenderlock fics, and ended up writing this in my notebook instead of paying attention in class. Oops.

The first time Sherlock sees it, he isn’t afraid.

Perhaps it’s just that he doesn’t register it as something real, something that actually exists. At any rate, it’s something he’s certainly never encountered before.

Sherlock is a tall man. At six foot, he very seldom has to look up to anyone.

The thing towers over him.

The thing—because it cannot possibly be human—dwarfs Sherlock. It’s nearly ten feet tall, it’s limbs impossibly long and gangling, putting even their so-called golem to shame. It’s face, or lack thereof, is blank and gaunt, its horrible paleness amplified in the shine of the full moon, contrasting against the stark blackness of its crisp suit. No features, no emotion, it just stands.

Outwardly, Sherlock looks remotely unperturbed—and he’s not scared, he’s intrigued. His brows furrow almost unperceivably, his lips part slightly to form his version of a gape. On the inside, he is analyzing, cataloguing, searching his files, trying to place this creature somewhere within the realm of reason.

When he finds he cannot, he blinks the confusion out of his eyes and the thing is gone and his attention is snapped back to John, who’s soft eyes flash mild concern.

_____

The second time he sees it, it’s for less than a second.

He turns the key in the door of their flat, the lock’s muffled clunking granting him access. He removes his coat and scarf with clinical swiftness and hangs them on the hook, determined not to turn around.

He can feel it watching him.

Sherlock does not get feelings of dread or fear without just cause. His gut does not tell him things are awry, his mind does.

When he feels the hair on the back of his neck prickle ominously, even he cannot deny it.

Fixing his gaze and furrowing his brows, he promptly turns his head and wipes his face of emotion to match the blank one of the thing.

There is it, looming over the stairs, unmoving, unfeeling.

It’s gone as soon as he looks, but the image of it is seared into his mind.

_____

The third time he sees it, he realizes John can’t.

They’re at a crime scene. A crime that even after some time Sherlock can’t make sense of.

Kneeling over a body and lost in thought, something breaks his furious concentration. He catches a glimpse of the deathly white, expressionless face from the corner of his eye

Looking up, he sees the thing inauspiciously standing right in the middle of the room. Boldly in plain sight. He has to stop himself from trembling and feels cold sweat start to surface on his skin. He thinks the temperature has to have dropped at least twenty degrees in the last five seconds.

His eyes flit immediately to John. The thing is in his direct line of vision.

John says nothing.

_____

He needs more data.

There’s an explanation for this phenomenon. In fact, he suspects that there is an incredibly sound reason for the thing and it is not a phenomenon at all.

A quick Google search provides him with some useful but disquieting information.

Many others had seen it. All with the same description—inhuman height, featureless face.

From reading testimonies by countless individuals scattered across the globe, Sherlock would immediately mark the creature (affectionately titled “slenderman”) as a hoax, a myth, an urban legend created to spook the impressionable.

But Sherlock had seen it too.

Never had he heard of the slenderman until now—it was unlikely his mind was playing tricks on him. It wasn’t possible for his mind to make him see this without the prior knowledge of it. And even still.

 _His_ mind _didn’t_ play tricks on him.

_____

The fourth time he sees it, he forgets.

He’s called to the Yard and leaves promptly. John is at work.

He skirts down the steps of their flat and instinctually raises an arm to hail a cab.

Suddenly he lowers it and starts a brisk jog across the street, nearly being ran over by several cars and ignoring their annoyed horns.

He doesn’t stop until he reaches the grotesque form; unreasonably long, spindly limbs, horror-inducing blank face.

Steeling himself, he strides calmly towards it. (outwardly, he remains stalwart, inwardly his pulse is racing, his gut filled with fear that his rational mind struggles to keep at bay).

“What do you want?” he demands firmly, though the strength of his words seems to be diminished by the sheer immensity of the thing.

____

Blinking, he doesn’t understand why he’s standing there, across the street from his flat. Just standing there. When had he even left? He couldn’t recall what he’d been doing last.

Quelling the dread coiling inside him, he dazedly returns to 221B.

He feels as if he's moving through someone else’s body as he routinely removes his coat and scarf to the hook on the wall (he doesn’t dare look up).

He struggles to take steps into the sitting room until he notices the figure sitting in it is the warm and familiar form of John.

“You know, if you’re going to be gone for days at a time, you could at least return my texts. Just so I know you haven’t died.”

Sherlock swallows a lump of fear down his throat and scrambles for his phone in his pocket. Several unanswered texts from John and missed calls from Lestrade. That wasn’t the thing that demanded his attention.

The thing that made him bit his lip so hard he almost drew blood was the date. The tiny numerals send a jolt of confusion and panic through his spine.

He had been gone for two days.

“Forgive me,” he says, forcing the words out through his immense anxiety. “Case more complicated than anticipated.”

Sherlock thinks the air is thick with impervious tension and surely John must feel it too.

“Are you okay?” John looks him over with the eyes of a concerned mother.

Sherlock absent-mindedly shuffles to his room. “I’m fine,” he says both to John and himself, shutting the door with finality. He doesn’t think he convinced either of them with his words.

Whatever this was, he didn’t want John involved in it.

_____

The next time he sees it, it nearly breaks him.

It’s calm—the calmest Sherlock has felt in a while. He hasn’t seen the thing or experienced any memory loss in a while. Perhaps it was gone. Perhaps his mind wasn’t as superhuman as he believed and he had imagined the whole thing. Maybe he was just as impressionable as every other human being on this planet. He wasn't special. He could accept that if it would just go away.

He and John are lounging comfortably in the sitting room; John with his nose buried in some medical journal and Sherlock on his laptop, fingers rapping away on the keys, entering data into a spreadsheet.

He is pleasantly content. Happy, even.

A hard pit forms in his stomach when looks up to see it standing behind John, it’s sinful arms raised around him, malicious fingers outstretched, reaching towards him. John sits unknowing, falsely secured, unaware of the danger.

Sherlock is paralyzed.

The thing inches closer, its obscenely pale and slender fingers almost touching John’s face. Before Sherlock can call out, before he can stop it from hurting John (and he is sure it will hurt him, it cannot possibly do anything else) it’s vanished.

He isn’t aware how heavily he’s breathing until John looks up to see him perched on the edge of his seat, clawing into the arms of his chair, his eyes as wide a saucers.

John swivels his head behind him, trying to find what’s causing Sherlock’s spooked expression.

“Sherlock, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he whispers, his throat tight and dry.

He gets up and crosses to his room, runs practically. As soon as he’s shut safely behind the door, he sinks to the floor and scrubs a hand through his hair and over his face.

Nothing has ever gotten into his head this badly. Not the supposed monster hounds at Baskerville, not the devil himself Jim Moriarty. There was no logic in this. All the thoughts he’d gathered to try and rationalize this are replaced with pure trepidation and anger.

Anger because this time it had gone after John. It was baiting him. It’s not going to get John.

The taste of bile rises in his mouth as he realizes he has no way of knowing how to prevent this.

_____

The last time he sees it, it destroys him.

He doesn’t know why it comes, or when it will come, but this time he wants to find it. He wants to find it because he’s got to tell it that it can’t have John. If it wants someone, it’ll have to take him instead.

He goes on a walk. He doesn’t normally believe that things such as this are ever really good for clearing his mind. His mind is never clear. There’s no rhyme or reason for why he goes, but his thinking for the last couple of days has been anything but rational.

He doesn’t tell John he’s leaving.

As soon as he turns the corner it’s at the end of the block, looking foreboding underneath the lamppost it's nearly taller than. Somehow Sherlock knew it would be there.

He kept his pace firm and continued towards it, neither frightened nor brave. It seems to take hours before he's finally just feet before it.

“Leave him alone.”

Never had any words fallen from his mouth with more malice behind them.

The beast did not seem to acknowledge him, but the longer Sherlock stood there, the more he realized that lit houses that dotted the street with light had been snuffed out. Even the stars were gone, the sky just a vast expanse of inky black. The only light that remained was the flooding, unnatural light of the lamppost.

All the fear that he’d suppressed before crashes upon him, the air hanging so thick he thinks it will strangle him.

The thing cocks its head with a sickening crack, and the lamppost—the only source of light, of good, of safety remaining—flickers and is extinguished.

The darkness is heavy upon him, it has weight, it's crushing on all sides of him, some unidentifiable pressure knocks the breath out of his lungs. He tries to move, to run, to do _anything_ , but it proves useless in the anesthetizing blackness.

If he could have uttered a single word, if he could have screamed, the last words from his lips would have been John’s name, as a warning, as an apology.

He wishes he’d at least spoken to him one final time.


End file.
